Some Thoughts on East Africa

1. Matatus and dalla dallas don't leave until they are full. Most of them also try to cram as many people as they can into them. I guess it's due to the cost of fuel, but can get very uncomfortable especially on bad roads.

2. Eating in a restaurant takes even longer than in Europe. I think they really wait until your order comes in to start from scratch.

3. Not all the places have napkins. Instead, they have somewhere for you to wash your hands before and after the meal or a woman comes to you with a basin and pitcher of water.

4. For a malarial area they are pretty lax when it comes to mosquitoes. Yes, there are mosquito nets but no screens on the windows or doors.

5. Very few cash registers. I think I've only been to 4 places that had them and they were large supermarkets. One coffee shop had one, but it wasn't plugged in. Everything is handwritten in a book with carbon paper.

6. Cash only! No credit cards!!

7. If you buy something and need change it could take another 10-15 min waiting for someone to go "next door" to make change.

8. All babies are bundled up in hats, jackets, and blankets even though it's over 75F and sunny.

9. No one has any washing machines. We've seen many immaculate white shirts around. Even the guy who sold charcoal buy the dusty road was wearing a spotless white shirt! This means that at all the hotels we've been in, someone had to hand-wash our sheets and towels. (I think there's some washing machines in Nairobi.)

10. All the big buildings are hand made out of cement, sticks, mud brick, rocks. The scaffolding around a construction site is made up of a bunch of sticks. Sometimes you can see this in the slightly uneven doorway and stairs.

11. Some male travel writer said something about the elegant simplicity of a squat toilet: just a hole in the ground. I don't feel the same way as my aim isn't as good a his. :-(